


Change

by ThePenguinOfDeath



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015)
Genre: Finn has trouble adjusting, Getting Together, M/M, Poe worries, Recovery, change, new life
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-25
Updated: 2015-12-25
Packaged: 2018-05-09 08:59:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,600
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5533937
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ThePenguinOfDeath/pseuds/ThePenguinOfDeath
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Finn has issues adjusting to his new life. Poe tries to help.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Change

**Author's Note:**

> Revision, I apologise profusely for my new ship obsession.

Adjusting to Resistance life was hard.

Finn was used to a certain routine. For as long as he could remember, he’d been woken up at 6am by a direct superior and followed the days commands, before retiring to bed promptly at 8pm. Everything had been done with his squad, and everything had been planned and executed with maximum efficiency. Order was key. Commands were strictly adhered to. It was easy to lose yourself and not have to think.

The Resistance was very different.

For one thing, it was all so _relaxed_. The canteen served breakfast between 6 and 10, but if you were up earlier or later you could find breakfast elsewhere no problem. Some training and meetings were timetabled, but mostly you were free to do things when you wanted to do them. Even missing training wasn’t considered a big deal. Very little was expected of you, and you certainly weren’t given a full routine.

There was no segregation either. In the First Order, Finn had worked in sanitation, so he had trained and lived with the other troopers who worked in sanitation. There had never been any real need for him to interact with the other Stormtroopers, so he had never done so. In the Resistance, on the other hand, everyone seemed to mix with everyone. Pilots had weapons training with engineers and communications specialists. The sanitation workers ate lunch with the commanders. It was all jovial, and friendly, and everyone seemed to know each other’s name.

At first, it had been easier. Finn had woken up from his coma to find Rey had left on a mission to find Luke Skywalker, Poe was alive, and General Organa was working on preparing the Resistance for the next battle. His back had been broken and several major nerves and arteries severed, but after major surgery he would be able to walk again. And for his first few weeks, that’s all he’d had to do – relearn how to walk.

That had been strange, of course, because injured Stormtroopers were just left behind. They were dead weight. Useless. But the Resistance looked after its own, Poe told him, and so Finn had been helped to recover.

But once he healed enough to walk around, and lift things, and crane his neck without having to lie down because of the pain, it all got harder.

There were no expectations of him. He asked General Organa what he could do to help, and she just asked him what he wanted to do. Finn had never been asked what he wanted to do before. He didn’t know what he wanted, except that he didn’t want to go back to the First Order. He felt like he should be doing something to help, but no-one would assign him anything.

Poe suggested he train as a weapons specialist on the spaceships, because he’d picked it up so quickly on their escape, but that barely took up two hours a day. Finn did his personal training and went to the gym to build up his strength, but he still ended up with hours and hours of free time. He didn’t know what to do with free time. Free time didn’t exist in the life of a Stormtrooper.

When he asked Poe, he was told he could clean Poe’s room if he was desperate for jobs – but then Poe seemed confused and guilty when Finn actually did it. In Finn’s eyes, Poe was far busier than him and had saved him from the First Order – why shouldn’t he help out by keeping his room tidy and making sure he ate meals? Yet Poe just went all awkward and insisted Finn shouldn’t go to all that trouble.

Finn wasn’t very good with etiquette, but he thought that helping people was the entire aim of the Resistance. Helping on an individual scale as well as a galaxy-wide one was surely normal around here, wasn’t it?

After a while, he figured out that he was supposed to take responsibility for his own time, but that realisation didn’t necessarily help him do it.

/

“Finn. Finn!”

It took Finn a few moments to realise someone was talking to him, and a few more moments to realise the voice was Poe’s.

“Hey, Poe.”

“Apparently you’ve logged three times as much training time as all the other weapons trainees this week. You’re allowed to take a break sometimes you know!”

Finn looked away awkwardly. “I get bored on breaks. I like training. Besides, the more I train the faster I can get out there and fight for the Resistance.”

“Everyone needs a break sometimes, buddy. Explore the planet! There’s a great bar if you head south, Te’Rau, and a pretty awesome forest to the north-west. Ever been hiking? It would be a good way to build up your strength, too.”

Finn didn’t really know how to reply. “Wouldn’t that be wasteful?”

“Wasteful?” Poe sounded confused.

“To go to a bar, or exploring, instead of training. It’s a waste of training time. I won’t be as useful to the Resistance.”

“Finn, you’re already useful to the Resistance. You don’t have to work yourself to death to prove it.”

“I’m not though! I’m not doing anything to help! You guys are out there saving the galaxy and I’m here sat around doing almost nothing. I worked at least twice as much as I work here at the First Order, and I was fine. I was useful. Here, I’m just taking up space.”

Poe was silent.

“Finn-“

“I should go log a few more hours on the blaster.”

“Finn!”

Finn ignored him. It was hard to drop years’ worth of conditioning just for one man, even if that man was Poe Dameron.

/

Finn still went to bed at around 8pm every night. He knew it was early by Resistance standards, but his body was programmed to wake up at 6am, and he didn’t function at his full ability if he didn’t get enough sleep.

Consequently, the knock on his door at 9.30 startled him awake.

“Hello?”

Old reflexes caused Finn’s hand to twitch for a blaster that wasn’t there.

“Finn? It’s Poe.”

Finn waved his hand to turn on the light and sat up. He was shirtless and in sleep-trousers, and he knew his hair was mussed, but the Stormtroopers had all seen each other worse.

“Come in?”

As Poe wandered in, his eyes widened at Finn’s dishevelled state. His eyes seemed to linger on Finn’s chest for a moment, briefly flickering down. Finn looked down to see if there was a mark or dirt – there wasn’t – and when he looked back up, Poe was blushing.

He would never understand that man.

“Are you hurt?” Finn tried to work out why Poe would come and see him so late. Possibly it wasn’t late for someone who didn’t have a Stormtrooper sleeping schedule, but Poe knew Finn went to bed early.

“You’re wanted.” Poe blurted out, suddenly, blushing even redder.

“What?”

“You were saying, earlier, that you didn’t feel useful, you felt like a waste of space. You’re not a waste of space. We all want you here. It’s not about usefulness, it’s about people wanting you to be here, and everyone wants you here. I want you here. I _need_ you here.” Poe was babbling.

“Are you… intoxicated?” Finn’s head was reeling.

“You mean am I drunk? Probably. I lost count somewhere after the seventh. But it doesn’t matter. I still want you when I’m sober, I’m just too scared to say anything. I’m scared to say it now, but I don’t think I have a brain to mouth filter at the moment.”

Finn paused to try and work it out. It was difficult – Poe was being distracted, slowly moving closer, his skin beautifully flushed. Finn was feeling something strange somewhere around his chest.

“You want me?”

Poe was now stood almost over Finn. This close, Finn could see he was swaying slightly, his eyes a little glassy.

“I want you. I’ve never wanted anyone as much as I want you.”

Finn didn’t know very much about emotion. He’d always been taught it was wrong, unnecessary, a weakness. He’d always felt strong emotions regardless, but he’d done his best to suppress them and be a good little Stormtrooper.

Love had always been the worst emotion of it all, but it hadn’t been one he’d had to deal with before now. Looking at Poe, he thought he finally understood why the First Order had been so afraid of it.

“I want you to.” He replied.

Poe’s entire body seemed to sag with relief, before a giddy smile spread across his face. He started to lean forward.

“-But when you’re sober.” Finn concluded. “Not that I don’t believe you when you’re intoxicated, but I really don’t want you to regret it in the morning.”

Poe started to look affronted.

“And you kind of woke me up. I need to get some sleep.”

“I’ll just… leave, then?” Poe’s entire face had fallen, and his shoulders were slumped.

“You can stay. If you want.”

The smile on Poe’s face made the strange feeling in Finn’s chest constrict, before flailing around wildly.

/

Sleeping in the same bed as someone else was strange. Finn had expected to find it hard, but actually, it was easier than falling asleep any other time.

/

In the morning, Finn woke up to a pair of beautiful brown eyes.

“Good morning.” Poe smiled, surprisingly eloquent for someone who Finn expected to have a killer hangover.

“Good morning.” He replied, rolling over.

Perhaps some things were easy after all.


End file.
